


Within The Year //ON HIATUS//

by HaltedMystic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Action, Angst, Blood, Cas is an assassin, Death, Depression, Drama, Friendship, Heartbreak, I mean obviously bc he's an assassin, Killing, Kissing, Love, M/M, Manipulation, Romance, SERIOUSLY A LOT OF DEPRESSION AND STUFF OF THAT SORT, SO PLEASE DONT READ THIS IF THAT TRIGGERS YOU I WANT Y'ALL TO BE OKAY, Slow Burn, Suicide, Suspense, but don't read this if you get triggered by that, or at least as slow as i can make it lol, there was an assassin's creed tag jesus christ lmao
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-03-28 08:07:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13899870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HaltedMystic/pseuds/HaltedMystic
Summary: 2,500 miles, 365 days, and 4 people to get through.Dean Winchester must die.





	1. The Job

**Author's Note:**

> So this isn't my first fic ever, but it is my first fic on my new account. It's based off of a prompt that I found on that Tumblr Prompt Guy's instagram, which I'll link if I can figure out how to. Anyway, this is just a start so don't judge the lack of words. Based on an idea where Castiel is an assassin and, well...you'll see the rest. 
> 
> This will mention suicide, depression, and murder quite a bit even if it doesn't in this chapter, so be careful around that. 
> 
> Also, this just in: I can't write titles for my life lmao

There were many benefits of his work, the biggest one being the location. When he wasn’t on a job, Castiel resided just outside of San Francisco, California. He enjoyed the warm weather, and he enjoyed not having to worry about being discovered. With so much crime in the town, nobody paid any attention to the blue-eyed man who lived alone and only left the house twice a day, at 3 AM and 12 AM exactly.  
There were all sorts of weirdos that lived in San Francisco, so nobody would give him a second glance if he wore gloves in the blazing sun, or never went outside without wearing large sunglasses that masked his face. Nobody would pay any mind to why he always spoke in hushed tones, if at all, or why he always avoided eye contact. Everybody just accepted how things were and would go on with their day.  
Many advantages, indeed. But that didn’t erase the drawbacks by any means.  
He still felt disgusting when he picked up the payphone, despite the pair of gloves he wore and the handkerchief he had wrapped around it. And the moment of silence right after he picked it up, as the caller had to make their split-second decision of Am I actually going to do this? was perhaps the worst part, although it came in close comparison to the line that would inevitably come directly after. 

_“Dean Winchester must die.”_

No matter how many varying versions of that line Castiel heard, he still felt chills shoot up his spine when the tinny voice on the other end of the phone stated his new job. If he hated someone so much as to kill them, he would simply do it himself and continue on with his life. But it was never his place to question the morals of his clients, simply to do the deed and move on. The name was just that - a name - but it was the next questions that would carry the weight onto it. 

“Any family, friends, people looking for him?”  
_“His parents are dead. His brother is somewhere in France. His friends are nobody you shouldn’t be able to get past.”_

It was sometimes shocking what people would pay to be able to get rid of someone without having to wash the blood off their hands. The job paid well, and after a while, the kills didn’t hurt to do. They were just humans. They were all humans, on a world that was a speck of dust in the grand scheme of things. In this galaxy, they had come from nothing, they meant nothing, and they would return to nothing. So it didn’t take long for him to stop feeling guilty, and soon after, he lost count of all the lives he had taken.  
It was just the job, after all. 

“Any last known locations or current locations?”  
_“Sterben University in New York City. He’s easy to find.”_

New York. Castiel sighed - he hated the prying eyes, the noise, the tourists, the way that nobody ever truly slept there. It was much too crowded, and he always got the feeling that he was being watched, not to mention the time differences. However, this case was, to say the least, different. Almost like a game of sorts. And Castiel had never been one to lose. 

“You know the deal. Three hundred grand.”  
_“I’ve given you one hundred. You’ll get the rest when the job is done.”_  
“Understood. Do not call this number again.”  
_“Remember, you have one year.”_

Castiel scrubbed a hand over his face tiredly. He was a skilled man, there was no denying that. He could run at ten miles an hour, lift three times his bodyweight, and kill several people without leaving any trace except the neat red slices that went ear to ear. He had trained for years to become the best at what he did, and that was no small feat. He was immensely proud of what he had been able to accomplish, but if there was one thing he hadn’t trained for, it was the conversation. 

“One year. Right. Say the deal again?”  
_“Find this man. Kill him. But do it sometime in the year. Not tomorrow. Not the day after. Take your time. You’ll get the money when you’ve completed what needs to be finished.”_  
“Thank you. Goodbye.”

Castiel took a moment to compose himself. He never had understood how people began to find him, know how to reach him, know what time he stopped at the payphones and how he jacked them to answer to a certain number, but they had. The pay meant only a few jobs a year, which he could handle. He didn't believe it was wrong anymore, because money was money, and you earn money by doing what needs to be done. And this job wasn’t the most difficult he had gotten, not by a long shot. He could make this work. Fly over to New York, find this Dean, do the job and leave. He just was waiting for the man to end the call. Castiel never put the phone down first, in case he would be given away the minute he dropped his guard. 

2,500 miles away, Dean Winchester hung up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First chapter complete! Under 1,000 words, but that's okay! Be sure to stick around, guys, because it's gonna get a lot better. Also, I love comments and kudos, so those would be g r e a t. Thank you guys!
> 
> Catch ya later!  
> -K


	2. The Backstories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we find out why the call was made, and a little slice of Castiel's past.

Dean Winchester waited too long before realizing he didn’t want to die. 

In fact, he should have known he didn’t want to die when he had to hire an assassin to kill him because he was too much of a coward to even do it himself. He could count on two hands the things he could keep living for, and that should have been more than enough, but for some reason, it wasn’t. 

Maybe he just wanted to see if it worked. Maybe he had a short, deadly lapse of judgement. Maybe a small part of him just wanted a reason to believe that his life was not in his own hands anymore. Whatever the reason, as he hung up the phone, he couldn’t say that he regretted what he had just done. 

Dean Winchester wasn’t suicidal. That had always been what he said. If he was suicidal, he would have killed himself. But he hadn’t. So he wasn’t. And that was that. 

As far as life went, things were pretty good. He knew that Sterben University had been a long shot, but they had one of the best film programs in the country. So when he got the large envelope embedded with the purple logo stating that he had been accepted, and with a partial scholarship at that, he and Sam jumped around the small kitchen wearing matching grins. He still found himself glowing a little when that memory resurfaced. 

Now, as a senior, everything was different. Two years ago, his mother had been caught in a fire from faulty wiring at her job as a secretary for one of the town’s smallest law firms. There had been three other people in the building at the time, but only one made it out alive. The firemen arrived so late that at his mom’s funeral, there was nothing to bury except the ring that she always kept by her bedside. 

Things spiraled down from there. Sammy flew away to France to study abroad directly after the accident, leaving Dean with no family left in the country and a very clinical case of depression that not one of his friends knew of. 

Dean had a small group, but they never strayed from each other. Charlie, Jo, Benny, and Gabe were the reason that he hadn’t lost it completely when his mother died. He had spent a few weeks barely being able to get out of bed, but with their help, he eventually was able to force himself to live again. He was coping, but he was never happy. 

It had been almost two months before Dean realized he was simply tired. He was tired of fighting wars against himself that he couldn’t win, he was tired of working for a degree that he had lost his drive for, he was tired of being alone with himself. He was tired of being Dean. He was tired, it seemed, of being alive. 

He couldn’t kill himself. He already knew that. Dean was many things, but he was not a coward, and if he was going to die, he refused to make it of his own hand. The number scrawled in the back of his father’s notebook had been a long shot, but John had had connections. So when he called through the pay phone to a man who had no last name but simply called himself Castiel, who worked, he claimed, under Raphael, Dean had been quick to be the one to give orders and state what needed to be done. 

If he was going to die, then by god, someone was going to have to kill him. 

But as he hung up the phone, he breathed a sigh of relief at the thought that this nightmare he called life was finally going to be over.

All he had to do was wait. 

\---

Castiel had been nineteen when he first met Raphael. 

It had all started when he got mugged at gunpoint while taking the subway home. There had been one witness who had his headphones on and his face buried in a book. Castiel had lost all common sense, panicked, and tackled the man as he fired, the strange position causing the gun to slip and the bullet to lodge itself in the owner’s skull. Castiel took in the scene before him, turned swiftly on his heel, and ran. He called a taxi to take him home that night, and the night after that, and the night after that. He started taking the subway again a few months later, after the death of the man had been ruled a suicide. 

A few days later, a man named Raphael and the one witness, who called himself Balthazar, found him. He had been taking a walk that night. Most people were scared to walk in San Francisco alone at night, but Castiel enjoyed it. He liked the dark, liked the feeling of being in his own head for a few minutes. He stayed cautious, but he was still unable to hear the velvet footsteps behind him or sense the people until it was too late and they had gotten him. 

Castiel had always been wary of being kidnapped while walking alone, but when they swiftly pulled a scratchy cloth over his head and dragged him away, his mind was too engulfed in fear to even think about fighting. He could tell there were two of them, and he knew that no matter what weapons he had, he couldn’t take both. They pulled him along at a brisk walk, and when he stumbled to the ground, they each took one of his arms over their shoulders and half carried, half dragged him the rest of the way. They didn’t travel long enough for Castiel to gather his thoughts, and soon they were ripping the cloth off of his head and the taller one had pinned him up against the wall. 

“Castiel, take a deep breath. We aren’t going to hurt you.”

Castiel breathed in and out a few times, trying to slow his heartbeat. “How did you find me? How do you know who I am?”

“Castiel, my name is Raphael, and this is Balthazar. You’ve intrigued us.”

And then he explained how it would go. Maybe Castiel said yes because he was broke, or desperate, or just needed a change, but he said yes. 

And a week later, when he did his first official kill, he was surprised at being congratulated, but he couldn’t say that he wasn't proud.  
Raphael trained him well, teaching him to get out of different holds, how to fight off more than one man at a time, how to kill someone and make it look like a suicide. Castiel worked cases alone, or he and Balthazar worked cases together. If he got a direct call, he would leave, and Raphael knew better now than to ask him questions. 

Overall, it was a good job. He knew Raphael would keep him under the radar. He knew he could keep himself under the radar. And after a while, the work became addictive in a way. The adrenaline, the suspense, the fear became a new high for him. 

He didn’t regret a thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there you have it - a tragic backstory or two. Hopefully this is the last short chapter, because after this we can get into the actual plot! I'm so excited to share this guys, you don't even know. I'll try and keep my posting consistent-ish, maybe not every day but at least once a week. Thanks for sticking around on the road so far! I love comments and kudos so if y'all could leave some I'll be thanking you forever in my heart.
> 
> Catch ya on the flip side!  
> -K


	3. The Roommate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Dean and Castiel meet for the first time, and drinking takes place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! I'm sorry this took forever. It's my break right now and I hadn't had motivation to write in a while, but break started and I banged this out in like two days (can you tell?). But it's like 2,500 words so enjoy it. Warning: some drinking I guess? Enjoy!

Christmas break on campus seemed like a different universe. There was no noise, no drunk people singing at three in the morning, no footsteps pounding down the halls while Dean tried to sleep. It was pleasant, if not a bit lonely. Dean was sure that if Gabriel - got bless Gabriel - hadn’t stayed at Sterben for the break, he would’ve spent his Christmas wallowing in self-pity at the fact that he didn’t have anyone to go home to for the holiday. 

As it was, Gabriel went out of his way to make sure that his mind was occupied. They spent the night drinking spiked eggnog and cocoa, singing Christmas carols off-key since nobody was there to yell at them, and watching the Home Alone movies until they couldn’t keep their eyes open anymore. 

The next morning, Dean woke up first and walked to the McDonald's just off campus to grab something for him and Gabe. They opened presents, or what they could afford, which was a Metallica cassette for Dean and a black jacket for Gabe that proudly sported the school mascot - a bear - across the back. 

All in all, Christmas break couldn’t have ended sooner, and yet didn’t end quickly enough. As his friends slowly trickled back into their assigned dorms, sporting their new clothes and bags and makeup, Dean didn’t find himself bitter or wanting. Instead, he was finally able to breathe clearly and think about how much they meant to him. For the time, everything seemed okay. 

The day before New Years, Dean was watching a movie with Benny and Charlie when three sharp raps at the door made them all jump. He motioned for the others to continue watching and stood up to walk over and open the door a crack. Just outside stood a woman with cat-eye spectacles and high cheekbones. 

“Dean Winchester?” Her voice was sharp. 

“Yeah, um, yes. I’m Dean.” Smooth. 

“Dean, we need to talk for a minute. Please come outside.”

Dean gave a nod to the others and then stepped out, quietly closing the door behind him. His mind flashed through what he had done in the last week. He hadn’t had any noise complains, or at least no warnings, and they couldn’t suspend him for drinking on campus. Could they? These thoughts pegged him over the course of half a second, until he went to face the woman and noticed a man standing a few feet behind her. 

He was Dean’s height, perhaps an inch or two shorter, with dark brown hair that he clearly hadn’t bothered to try and tame and a 5 o'clock shadow of the same shade. There were two burgundy suitcases behind him, and he looked like he had just been dragged out of something important, seeing as he wore a white shirt with crisp lines and a dark blue tie, albeit tied messily and backwards. However, Dean didn’t get the full picture until he looked into the man’s eyes, which were a haunting blue and crinkling slightly from the half smile that formed on the man’s face. 

Dean turned back to the woman. 

“Dean, this is Cas. He’s recently transferred here from California, and seeing as you were the only available room in the Dolch building, we thought it would be best to put him with you. Now, I know Cas here is a little nervous about coming in the middle of the year, but I’m sure you’ll make him feel welcome, won’t you?” She punctuated this sentence with a glare that could have melted through steel. 

Dean nodded and muttered a “Yes, ma’am,” as he went to open the door so..Cas could bring his bags to his - no, _their_ \- room. The shorter man gave a smile and a nod to the woman before pulling his suitcases in. He made a beeline for the bed that wasn’t currently occupied by the two other bodies in the room as Dean walked over to them. 

“Benny, Charlie, this is my new roommate, Cas.” The name tickled the back of his brain as though there was something there just out of reach, but he couldn’t grab it, so he let it go. “Cas, Benny, Charlie.” He pointed to each of them in turn and then motioned with a jerk of his head for the two to get out.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Cas said once the door had closed. His voice was deeper than expected, and slightly scratchy, as though he had been chewing gravel for a few days. 

“It’s okay. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.” Dean was many things, but he wasn’t an asshole. “I’m Dean. But if you’re rooming with me, I’m guessing you already know that.” Cas nodded. “I’m twenty. But you probably know that too.”

The other man’s lips ghosted a smile. “Twenty-three. But I still am pursuing my master’s degree in psychology.”

A chuckle forced its way out of Dean. “You should’ve done that in the West Coast. I know they have better schools there. What’s a Cali guy like you doing in Sterben anyway?”

Cas’s mouth tightened as small wrinkles appeared on his forehead, as though he couldn’t bear to think of such a thing. “I had an internship here that was urgent for me to attend. This university was the most logical choice to finish my education.”

“Who could be so important that you had to leave from the Golden State?” 

“Dr. Mord. He is a psychiatrist who lives about fifteen minutes away by bus, and specializes in testing adolescents for mental disorders, specifically ADD and ADHD.” 

Dean nodded, though Cas’s tone had made it clear he didn’t want to stay on the topic. “Sounds important. What do you say you finish unpacking, I finish my movie, we go grab something to eat and I can show you around a little?”

“That sounds wonderful, Dean,” Cas said as he gave a real smile, teeth and all. “Do you mind if I turn on some music while I unpack? You can tell me when you’re finished what you want to do.”

Dean flashed him a thumbs up before popping in his headphones and getting lost in the world of Evey Hammond and Adam Susan. The movie went too slowly, so he slammed his laptop shut halfway through, causing Cas, who had been folding his clothes across the room, to jump as if he had heard a gunshot. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Dean placated. “Are you ready to go?”

Cas gave another tight nod and they set out, venturing to a pizza place about a half mile away, because Dean insisted that “if you haven’t had New York pizza, it’s like you haven’t even fucking lived here.” Dean grabbed a booth for them and motioned for Cas to slide in across from him. They locked eyes for a few awkward seconds before Dean opened his mouth. 

“Do you read Harry Potter?”

Cas smiled. “I do.”

With that prompting, Dean launched into a lengthy conversation about the different houses and how Umbridge showed that sometimes kindness can be the worst flaw in people. He had an air of ease surrounding him, making sure to give Cas the appropriate time to nod and reply on cue. 

“-and that shows why films need to have more diversity in their antagonists.” Dean finished his spiel just as their pizza came, two slices of plain for Dean and one for Cas. They slowly lapsed into silence as they ate, Dean giving Cas an expectant look as he took his first bite and then lowering it as Cas nodded his approval. When their pizza was finished, Cas tried to pay the bill, but Dean slapped his hand away and threw down his credit card in protest. 

“Don’t even think about it, dude. Consider it a housewarming gift. For...our house.” He broke off the end of the sentence with an easy chuckle, covering the nervous feeling that spread through him seeing as he couldn’t quite place why he was so anxious. Cas seemed to buy it, though, and accepted the handout with minimal grumbling. 

Half an hour later, the sky was dark, despite it only being around nine, and the only lighting that glossed over the two was the moon and the occasional street lamp. Dean showed Cas around the campus, introducing him to various halls and buildings. 

“That’s the Kappen building, and the Psych house is there, so you’ll probably be spending a lot of time around here. It’s pretty nice. I take a music therapy class in that building-” he pointed at a glass building in the vicinity, “-and that’s a good course. I think you’ll like it.”

Cas nodded. “I hope so. Thank you, Dean.”

“It’s getting late. Let’s head back to the dorms.” Dean started walking, Cas trailing behind him. Once Dean entered the room, he grabbed a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, instructing Cas to change in the room while he got ready in the bathrooms. As he walked over, Dean allowed his thoughts to wander a little. 

Cas was nice, if not a bit quiet, and seemed as though he wouldn’t be too bad to have around. At least, he wasn’t too annoying at first glance. Dean had dealt with those roommates before, and god, were they a pain in the ass. 

By the time he had washed his face and gotten into his pajamas, Dean had made up his mind. 

He marched up to the room and knocked, waiting for Cas’s rumbling “Come in!” before entering.

“Hey, Cas, I was wondering if you’d like to come to a New Year’s party with me and my friends tomorrow?”

Cas looked a little uneasy, but agreed nonetheless. “That sounds fun, Dean, thank you.” 

“Awesome. We can go together tomorrow.” 

“That works. I’m going to go brush my teeth.”

He left and Dean slipped between the covers, feeling uneasy and not knowing why. His heart beat a touch too loudly, and he still hadn’t fallen asleep by the time Cas turned off the lights. 

And when he turned his back to a sleeping Cas and had to resist the urge to look over at him, he couldn’t figure out the reason. 

\--

Even before he had met Raphael, Castiel had never been a big party person, or even a drinking person. He much preferred staying at home with a book or a good movie. However, he was on a mission, and a party with Dean Winchester? Too good of an opportunity to pass up. 

So here he was, wearing a dark grey button down with the sleeves rolled up, because _“You aren’t wearing a fucking trenchcoat to a party, Cas, okay?”_. The group was much larger than Cas had expected, thrown at someone’s apartment just off campus. Dean had gone to grab drinks and told Cas to mingle. 

He hated that word. He was here to get past people, not to stand and converse with them. So he stood in the same spot Dean had left him, trying to look like he had enough coordination to move with the pulsing music. He didn’t think it was working. 

“Dude, have a drink. You’re too stiff.” Dean suddenly appeared next to him, holding two red solo cups in one hand and a plastic shot glass in the other, which he offered up. Castiel took it gingerly and tried to drink it like he had seen in the movies - tilted his head back and took it down in one go. It burned, and though Castiel had never been opposed to the occasional glass of red wine with dinner, this...this was an entirely different ball game. And people did this for _fun?_

He has no time to dwell on it, as Dean is now handing him one of the red cups. He takes a swig before he can begin to dread it, and is pleasantly surprised that it’s significantly less strong than the first one, instead tasting almost fruity. He was able to chug the rest of it without prompting. 

“Woah, woah, slow down!” Dean laughed. “Or don’t. Come with me, we can get some more.”

There were red solo cups lined up on the island in the middle of the kitchen, the shots on the counter nearby. Castiel took one of each, drinking the shot and immediately chasing it with the punch. Dean gave a noise of approval beside him and took a shot of his own, encouraging Castiel to take a couple more sips. 

He wasn’t looking to get drunk, but he had never really consumed hard liquor either, so he shouldn’t have been too surprised when the room started to get hazy after another drink or two. He still could keep his wits, terrified as he was to lose them. He heard Dean say something.

“Yes, Dean?”

“We should go home.” Dean didn’t look as drunk as Castiel, but he also looked like the type to party every night. Castiel shouldn’t tear him away. He should probably say so. 

“No. You like parties. I’ll go.”

Dean was there suddenly, a hand on his shoulder, keeping him grounded, steering him through the crowd. Castiel suddenly felt more guilty than anything, and although the one coherent thought running through his head was _do not tell Dean about the mission_ , suddenly he felt the need to apologize. 

“Dean?”

“Hmm?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Dean thought he meant to apologize because he drank too much. That worked. That could work. 

They got to the dorm room after what seemed like hours and what seemed like seconds. Dean opened the door and then looked at Castiel. He had nice eyes. Very green. Castiel liked them. 

“I like your eyes. They’re green.”

Dean chuckled. “Thank you.”

For some reason, Castiel wanted him closer. 

“Dean, come here.”

The taller man stepped forward. “What’s up?”

“Closer.”

Dean leaned in. “Getting there.”

Cas tilted his head up just a little, and then his lips were on Dean’s, and then they were kissing and he tasted like alcohol and fireworks and guilt and then there were hands on his chest, gentle but resolute, pushing him away. 

He was too intoxicated to be embarrassed. 

“You’re drunk.” Dean’s tone was kind but left no room for argument. “Get cleaned up and go to bed, okay?”

Castiel felt himself nod and gathered his sweatpants and toothbrush before heading to the bathrooms. He washed his face with hands that felt too large and uncoordinated to be his, and walked back to the dorm room on feet that didn’t seem to be connected to his brain. Dean was sitting on his bed, his legs crossed, facing the wall. Castiel locked their door and turned the lights off. 

Dean spoke suddenly, causing Cas’s heart rate to jump. 

“Night, Cas.”

And Castiel felt his heart sink, but couldn’t quite place his finger on why. 

“Goodnight, Dean.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I HOPE Y'ALL ENJOYED THAT.  
> If you did, leave comments and kudos! I check them every morning and they just make my day. 
> 
> I'm gonna write a ton over break, so get strapped in!
> 
> Thanks guys.  
> -K


	4. An Update

For those of you who were expecting a new chapter, sorry.   
I don't know if anyone even reads this, but if there is some soul out there who patiently checks for updates every day, this one is for you. I'm aware I haven't updated in decades, and I'm aware that that's completely my fault for being dumb and for not finishing the story before beginning to upload it. However, April is when competition season gets really intense, and it's been totally kicking my butt and taking away most of my spare time. Besides that, there's also finals coming up. Basically, my life at the moment is composed of either competing, practicing, or doing schoolwork, leaving little time for anything else. Final statement? I've decided that as of today, I'm going to put this work on hiatus until further notice. I'll still try to write, so keep an eye out for that, but until competition and auditions have died down a little I'm just going to be taking a short break. 

Peace out, and know you can always reach out to my tumblr. It's @relatablewriting, and if you smash a prompt in there somewhere, I'll try to fill it so my skills don't go down the drain. 

\--K


End file.
